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HomeMy WebLinkAboutagenda.council.joint.20140805 CITY COUNCIL & JOINT WORK SESSION August 05, 2014 4:00 PM, City Council Chambers MEETING AGENDA I. Joint Work Session with BOCC MEETING AGENDA August 5, 2014 4 PM Council Chambers JOINT WORK SESSION OF CITY COUNCIL & BOCC 4:00 Pro Cycle Challenge Update 4:20 Cradle to Career Program Update 5:00 Library and Galena Plaza Project – Discussion 5:30 CCI Legislative Items - Discussion 6:00 Adjourn P1 I. P2 I. P3 I. P4 I. P5 I. P6 I. P7 I. P8 I. P9 I. P10 I. P11 I. P12 I. P13 I. P14 I. P15 I. P16 I. P17 I. MEMORANDUM TO: Mayor and City Council Pitkin County Board of County Commissioners FROM: Aspen to Parachute Cradle to Career Initiative (CCI): Aspen Community Foundation: Tamara Tormohlen, John Bennett, Valery Carlin, Jessica Owings Co-Chairs CCI Ready for Kindergarten Action Team: Rick Blauvelt, Executive Director, Raising a Reader Julie Knowles, Director, Assessments & Special Programs, Garfield RE-2 School District Shirley Ritter, Director, Kids First, City of Aspen Nan Sundeen, Director, Health and Human Services, Pitkin County THRU: R. Barry Crook, Assistant City Manager DATE OF MEMO: July 30, 2014 MEETING DATE: August 5, 2014 RE: Cradle to Career Initiative Implementation Updates on local early childhood information REQUEST OF COUNCIL: This memo is to provide the most recent information about the implementation of the Aspen to Parachute Cradle to Career Initiative (CCI). This memo also includes early childhood information updates (Attachment F.) PREVIOUS COUNCIL ACTION: Background information about the work of the CCI and the many collective impact participants has been shared with Aspen City Council and Pitkin BOCC in the past several months. BACKGROUND: To give you an idea of the landscape of early childhood efforts, please see Attachment F. There have been consistent, intentional, collaborative efforts made by everyone involved to improve the lives of children and families; that is what brings us to this meeting. Aspen to Parachute Cradle to Career Initiative (CCI) CCI was created in response to a quiet crisis facing many of our region’s children. The 80-mile corridor from Aspen to Parachute is home to thousands of working class families struggling to survive. Commuting to work, many parents are forced to leave children behind with limited supervision during non-school hours. Our valley is diverse: 77% of Rifle’s elementary school kids qualify for a free or subsidized lunch; 65% of Carbondale’s middle school kids are Latino. A profound educational achievement gap opens in kindergarten when many students arrive with no preschool experience and poor language skills. For low-income children who cannot read at grade P18 I. level by the third grade, the odds of failing to finish high school increase by 1,300%. The preschools, after-school enrichment programs, academic tutoring, college counseling, and summer camps that we take for granted in the Aspen area are too rare elsewhere. 27% of our region’s low- income children do not graduate from high school, and less than 1% of our Latino children enroll in preschool. Our region’s children, our workforce, and our valley’s future are at risk. To address this crisis, the Aspen Community Foundation enabled the Aspen to Parachute Cradle to Career Initiative (CCI) to convene a broad range of community leaders to create a focused regional plan, through which a powerful partnership of schools, non-profits, businesses, governments, civic organizations and philanthropists can dramatically and measurably increase the success of our youth. DISCUSSION: Launched in 2012, CCI’s mission is to ensure that the 22,000 children between Aspen and Parachute are ready for kindergarten and that they graduate high school ready for college and career. Employing a “Collective Impact” strategy, 60 to 70 regional leaders met monthly for 19 months to reach consensus on (1) CCI’s four high-level goals, (2) a shared measurement system with quantifiable indicators of success, and (3) long-term Action Plan with specific collaborative programs and actions to achieve the youth success goals. CCI’s four high-level goals for every child: 1. Ready for Kindergarten 2. Develop Social and Life Skills for Success & Happiness 3. Succeed Academically 4. Graduate Ready for College & Career For each of the four goals, the CCI Action Plan lists specific indicators and metrics by which to gauge community success over time. The diverse leaders who created the Action Plan hope to align the entire regional community around these consensus goals and indicators. Doing so would be a powerful statement of our willingness to think and act regionally to solve critical problems that affect us all. RECOMMENDED ACTION: None, information only. CITY MANAGER COMMENTS: ATTACHMENTS: A. Cradle to Career Initiative Action Plan – hard copy B. Participant list CCI C. Kids Count Report – Colorado Children's Campaign – hard copy D. Colorado Children's Campaign data breakdown for Pitkin County E. NLC Educational Alignment Framework for Young Children F. Early Childhood information updates P19 I. Special Thanks This action plan was created by a hundred or so leaders from Parachute to Aspen who worked tirelessly through long meetings for over 18 months. While their backgrounds and perspectives varied, they were united by a common drive to help all our youth achieve greater success and thrive. Our regional community owes a special debt of thanks to all who participated: 9th Judicial District Magistrate A Child's Garden of Peace Access Roaring Fork Alpine Bank - Aspen Andy Zanca Youth Empowerment Aspen Center for Environmental Studies City of Aspen Aspen Community Church Aspen Film Aspen Global Change Institute Aspen Historical Society Aspen Music Festival and School Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Aspen School District Aspen Skiing Company Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club Aspen Writers' Foundation Aspen Youth Center Blue Lake Preschool The Buddy Program Carbondale Council for the Arts & Humanities Children's Hospital Advocacy Initiative Children's Mini College Children's Rocky Mountain School College Trek Colorado Department of Human Services Colorado Mountain College Community Health Services Constant Learning Organization The Cottage Early Childhood Network Early Learning Center Executive Service Corps Extreme Sports Camp Family Visitor Programs Family Resource Centers of Roaring Fork School District Focused Kids Garfield County Childcare Program Garfield County Human Services Garfield County PREP Garfield County Public Health Garfield County Public Library District Garfield County School District 16 Garfield School District Re- 2 Glenwood Springs Chamber of Commerce Glenwood Springs Recreation Center Glenwood Springs Workforce Center Growing Years Hispanic Alliance Houses for Higher Education Kids First Little Red School House The Manaus Fund Mind Springs Health Mountain Valley Developmental Services Mpower Mt. Sopris Montessori School OUR School Planned Parenthood Pre-Collegiate Program Project 18 Raising A Reader Reach Out and Read River Center of New Castle Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers Roaring Fork School District Roaring Fork School Health Centers Rocky Mountain SER Head Start Seltzer Consulting Group Snowmass Chapel Spellbinders Spring Board Summit 54 Tai Chi for Kids Teen Gems Coaching Theatre Aspen Thunder River Theatre Company Valley Life for All Valley Partnership for Drug Prevention Wildwood School Windwalkers Wyly Community Art Center Yampah Mountain Schools YouthEntity YouthZone ATTACHMENT B P20 I. ATTACHMENT B P21 I. 86.6% 88.4% 60.6% 72.2% 74.2% 43.7% All students Not eligible for FRL Eligible for FRL Reading Math Percent Proficient/Advanced in Pitkin County, 2012-2013 ATTACHMENT D P22 I. 86.6% 79% 68.3% 89.2% 72.2% 68.4% 42.3% 75.9% All students Asian Hispanic White Reading Math Percent Proficient/Advanced in Pitkin County, 2012-2013 Note: Data not included for American Indian, Black, Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiin and Two or More Races due to population size. ATTACHMENT D P23 I. 96.7% 80% 99% 98.3% 88.9% 100% 95.2% 66.7% 98.2% All students Hispanic White All students Female Male Graduation Rates in Pitkin County, 2012-2013 Note: Data not included for American Indian, Asian, Black, Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiin and Two or More Races due to limited population size. ATTACHMENT D P24 I. Educational Alignment Framework for Young Children To address these challenges, municipal leaders can bring together key stakeholders to improve early education and strengthen local schools, provide better alignment between community based early education, and school-based learning, and improve transitions as children move from one level to the next. Key elements of this work include: 1. Formal partnerships or governance structures to develop common definitions and goals and take joint action to implement a high quality, aligned system with blended or braided funding from a variety of sources. 2. Access to quality early education in a variety of settings to ensure that young children enter school prepared to succeed. 3. School quality and organization to improve access to full-day kindergarten, support developmentally-appropriate room designs and teaching practices, and promote communication and collaboration among the early grades. 4. Alignment of standards, curricula, teaching practices, and assessments (with a focus on both social competence and academic skills) that build on what children have learned and how they have learned it from one level to the next. 5. Communication and data sharing to allow parents, early educators, teachers, and service providers access to common information that will improve how each supports the learning and development of the children in their care. 6. Qualified teachers and administrators, including efforts to ensure that early educators in all settings have a Bachelors degree and specialized early childhood training, as well as ongoing professional development. 7. Parent engagement and family support to develop shared educational goals for children, support parents in their role as a child’s first (and continuing) teacher and help children and parents access the full-range of services, including health and mental health services. 8. Programs to facilitate smooth transitions to school by making children and parents feel comfortable and welcome in the new school environment. 9. Public awareness of the importance of the early education to increase the value that parents and other members of the community place on high quality education from the earliest years through post-secondary success. 10. Funding strategies that help communities generate sufficient resources – in some cases by blending and braiding a variety of funding streams – to meet the needs of young children from birth through age eight. ATTACHMENT E P25 I. Early Childhood Information Updates August 5, 2014 Colorado Children's Campaign – Kids Count 2014 (Please note this information is from 2012.) Your “Kids Count in Colorado” data book is provided to you by the Colorado Children's Campaign. Shirley Ritter continues to be the local partner in the “It’s About Kids” network. You will notice that overall children in Pitkin County are doing well, however there are still gaps. We have 5.4% of our children who qualify for free or reduced lunch or about 150 children. We have 9.3% children living in poverty, about 275 children. We also have 12.7% of our child population that is uninsured, about 375 children. (Kids Count 2014). More recent local information shows that from November 2013 to April 2014 Pitkin enrolled 229 children under the age of 18 in health insurance. That can include Medicaid and CHP+ as well as through the exchange. FYI, we currently have 411 children on Medicaid and 91 children on CHP+. This data has impacts for our community in terms of parents being productive workers and children being ready for school and doing well in life. We should celebrate that 85% of women giving birth in Pitkin County get prenatal care in their first trimester. We also have 100% of children attending full day Kindergarten, and 96.7% graduation rate from high school. Overall, our kids are scoring proficient or above on TCAP tests, but again there is disparity between demographic groups when the data is broken down by gender, ethnicity, and poverty indicators. Please see Attachment D. National League of Cities (NLC) Colorado Summit Meeting – July 18, 2014 Shirley Ritter and Julia Rourk, Assistant Superintendent Aspen School District joined the NLC meeting in Longmont. 30 participants learned about models for educational alignment from 6 cities across the nation and 5 cities in Colorado. We were also able to share the alignment of assessment and learning that is beginning to happen in the Aspen School District and the majority of childcare programs in Pitkin County. Please see the Educational Alignment Framework for Young Children from the NLC, (Attachment E). We were excited to see that through partnerships with the Aspen School District, Aspen Community Foundation, the Rural Resort Region Early Childhood Council (RRRECC), and the State of Colorado, we are working on every one of these indicators! Colorado’s new Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) Colorado received a Federal Race to the Top Grant of $30,000,000 to increase early childhood outcomes by building a system for quality improvement in childcare programs, including using shared data to ensure a child’s success in school. They have established an Office of Early Childhood at the Colorado Department of Human Services (DHS). In July 2014 Shirley Ritter attended the national QRIS conference held in Denver, hosted by the Build Initiative. Developing an early childhood system that includes early learning, family support, health, mental health and nutrition, and special needs / early intervention, is a trend across about half of the states in the US at this point. These efforts incorporate aligning public and private resources, increased responsiveness to families, and are based on early brain development using best practice in caregiving. There is great care being taken to insure equity for underserved populations of children; to make sure every child has the opportunity to reach their full potential. ATTACHMENT F P26 I. Again, through our local, regional, and state partnerships we are able to make sure our children, families, and childcare providers know what services are available and what changes are coming. We know there will be new components in the new rating for childcare programs, Kids First staff are now certified reliable in these new assessments, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) tool used for rating teacher-child interactions, and the Program Administration Scale (PAS) tool used for rating administrative programming. For more information on BUILD Initiative - http://www.buildinitiative.org/Home.aspx For more information on the Colorado Office of Early Childhood - http://www.coloradoofficeofearlychildhood.com/ HB 13-1291 Grant partnerships Infant Toddler Quality Improvement Program (ITQIP) The Rural Resort Region Early Childhood Council (RRRECC), Pitkin, Eagle, and Lake Counties made a joint application to Colorado DHS in state fiscal year 2013-2014 and received a total of $451,673. Pitkin County received $56,000 and used these dollars to pay for 4 infant/toddler slots to be held for CCCAP eligible children, creating the Pitkin SmartStart webpage which provides one place for information about CCCAP, Kid’s First and the Colorado Preschool Program and infant/toddler playground enhancements. Kids First received the RRRECC portion of funding used throughout Pitkin County, $60,000, used for quality improvement ratings, coaching, grants for playgrounds, and a contracted Family Engagement Coordinator (FEC). The FEC provided community outreach for the Pitkin Smart Start program, helped families complete the complicated Colorado Childcare Assistance Program (CCCAP) application, and worked with childcare providers to accept CCCAP funded families and understand their responsibilities. Childcare providers who care for infants and toddlers (9 classrooms) also received funding to implement individual child assessments using Teaching Strategies Gold (T.S. Gold), already in use in the Colorado Preschool Program (CPP) and to be used next year in the Aspen School District Kindergarten to assess children’s developmental milestones, inform curriculum, and share information with families. In the SFY 2014-15 grant cycle, Pitkin County will take over the responsibility for managing the Family Engagement Coordinator (FEC). In addition, the Pitkin SmartStart webpage (www.pitkinsmartstart.com) will be promoted through radio/print and special events. Kids First will continue quality improvement work in the childcare classrooms and incentivize increased capacity for infants and toddlers. ATTACHMENT F P27 I.